


those golden moments

by hannamoon



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst, Pregnancy, Some fluff if you’re lucky, everyone lives don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds, oh boy here we go - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29507928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannamoon/pseuds/hannamoon
Summary: Unlike her mother, there are no sundrop flowers to save Rapunzel.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	those golden moments

**Author's Note:**

> due to the sensitive nature of this, i’d like to make it clear i am pro-choice and a foetus is only a child if you want it to be. if you don’t like that get the fuck out of my fic. 
> 
> content warnings: mentions of miscarriage, traumatic pregnancy and labour, depictions of anxiety and ptsd.
> 
> title from for island fires and family by dermot kennedy.

_now when i’m face to face with death, i’ll grab his throat_  
_and ask him ‘how does it hurt?’_  
_up in those golden moments, growin’ old too quickly_  
_was he thinking of her?_

\- dermot kennedy, for island fires and family

* * *

_\+ nine weeks_

The nausea doesn’t hit as strongly as the fear. She can’t breathe suddenly, and hastily pushes away from the table, knowing only that she needs to _escape_. 

Rapunzel doesn’t get far before emptying her stomach on the floor in front of her, gasping and heaving as her mind tries to catch up. Hands find her as she shakily stands to her feet, and she lets them guide her down to the floor as the first tears begin to fall. She’s only faintly aware of Eugene whispering into her hair and pulling her into his arms, the rise and fall of his chest against hers reminding her to inhale.

“Rapunzel.” He runs his hands down her spine as he speaks, lips against her temple. “I’m here. It’s alright.”

Her senses come back to her slowly. The pounding in her head, the sting of bile at the back of her throat. Eugene’s shirt is clenched in her hands, and she releases it in favour of wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Hi, sunshine,” he whispers. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

No, she doesn’t—though that’s not quite the truth. She’d prefer that there was nothing to tell him, that her barrage of thoughts would simply disappear if she chose to ignore them. It’s tiring work to do on her own though, and her husband feels warm and safe.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

He momentarily falls still at her confession, and in the second before his hands resume their tracing over her back, Rapunzel feels her heart miss a beat.

“I wanted to be sure,” she tries to explain, “I mean, my period hasn’t been reliable since… well—but then came the aches and the nausea, and it feels just like—I should ask Doctor Rosia, of course, but I didn’t… I don’t know, I’m sorry, Eugene—”

She’s cut off first by the sobs threatening to choke her, then Eugene whispering, “Breathe, sweetheart.”

She tries to do as he says, frustrated that her emotions keep getting the best of her. Though once her tears stop falling, Eugene gently nudges her away, and Rapunzel finally meets his eyes. She expects to find any mix of emotions, wouldn’t be surprised if he’s as angry with her as she is with herself, but he just smiles softly and presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“You know, Rapunzel, we don’t have to do this. If you don’t want to have this baby—”

“No,” she interrupts, her stomach churning again at the thought. “I mean, I _do_. That’s the problem. I can’t lose any more, Eugene.”

The first time, it came as a shock. The pregnancy had been unplanned, discovered barely a month after their wedding, and then lost as soon as they managed to wrap their heads around it. The second was years later, when she was ready to try again. By the fifth time, she’d become used to the back aches and blood clots, the crying alone in their room. 

“Okay,” he says softly. “Then we’ll stop trying, okay? Besides,” he smiles a bit brighter and slides his hands around to her abdomen, “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”

She takes a final deep breath. “Okay.”

* * *

_\+ twelve weeks_

Rapunzel turns in front of the mirror, peering intently at her abdomen. Her husband has been fussing over her every morning, insistent that her stomach is starting to swell, but she’s not so sure. She tries expelling all of the air in her chest again, inspecting what she’s certain is just her usual fat.

She doesn’t hear when Eugene returns from the bathroom, but watches him approach in the mirror. “I still don’t see anything,” she says, even as he wraps his arms around her from behind. His hands cradle where, according to all logic, a baby should be.

In theory, she can recognise the signs. Doctor Rosia has reminded her, as she always does, that they can’t be certain until the quickening, but there’s been a sour taste in the back of her throat for weeks now and the smell of Eugene’s moisturiser has her twisting out of his embrace. And though she checks every morning, she hasn’t bled for over two months now. 

“She’s in there,” he insists.

That’s another thing he does, referring to the baby as if he knows they’re having a daughter. As if he’s certain that this time, Rapunzel won’t lose another child.

Most days, she let’s him lie perpendicular to her, whispering the sweetest things to her stomach until she’s crying or laughing. Today, she feels something vile turning in her stomach, and when Eugene tries to press closer, she snaps. 

“Stop,” she says, her voice stiff and foreign to her ears as she pushes Eugene an arms-length away. “Stop _saying_ that. Stop pretending that everything is going to be fine!”

At least this time he stays back. Rapunzel folds in on herself in his absence, a sudden hatred for herself overwhelming any anger she felt towards Eugene. It isn’t his fault she’s lost five of their children, after all. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers immediately, and it sounds more like a plea.

Softly, he asks her, “Do you want me to stay here or leave you alone?”

“Stay, please.” 

She doesn’t deserve him, she thinks, watching the ground at his feet as he brings her a robe and places it gently over her bare shoulders. Clutching it to her chest, she lets him guide her back to their bed, let’s him wrap her in his arms. 

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I just don’t understand how you can be so hopeful when all I feel is fear.”

“Sunshine, I’m scared out of my mind. Watching you have to go through this, when I can’t even help you? Damn it, I would do _anything_ to help you, if I could.” He presses his face into her hair, and Rapunzel wonders if he’s crying. “I guess it just helps me to think it’ll be different this time, instead of… yeah. But I can tone it down a bit.”

She turns in his arms so she’s holding on to him just as tightly. If there’s one thing she knows for certain, she’d have never made it this far without him.

“No, I’m okay! I’ll… try to be okay.”

Eugene gently tilts up her chin so she meets his eyes. “You’re incredible, Rapunzel, you know that? You’re going to be a great mom.”

At that, the tears that have been welling behind her eyes finally fall. They’ve told a very few people about all they’ve struggled through, but he’s been by her side for every moment of it. She wants to give him everything he deserves, even if it means a hundred babies, or if it means a life without her. She’d do it for him in a heartbeat.

* * *

_\+ eighteen weeks_

“You didn’t have to bring me all the way out here for this, you know.”

She can feel Eugene laugh against her as she shifts. Honestly, she’d planned the date just to get away for a night. With her abdomen noticeably swelling, the secret had been hard to keep, and soon all of Corona was sending gifts and congratulating her. Rapunzel doesn’t want to be ungrateful, but a part of her misses a time before she had yet another expectation stacked on top of her. 

And having her husband splayed beneath her isn’t half bad either. 

She grins back. “Are you complaining?”

“Not in a million years,” he says. “Now come back here.”

His hands tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck, tugging her down into a kiss. Ever since he found out Rapunzel was pregnant, he’d been especially, infuriatingly gentle with her, but something about lying in the bottom of a rowboat with her skirts hitched around her waist seems to have changed his mind.

It does seem like they’re in their own special world, with glittering stars and the water swaying beneath them. She can’t remember the last time they were able to escape for so long.

He finally drags his hands up her thighs, and from the swift flutter in her stomach, she’s certain she needs him _now_. Switching tactics, she forgoes his partially-unbuttoned shirt in favour of grazing kisses down the column of his neck. His responding whine brings a smile to her lips, and her stomach flips again, stronger this time, almost as if—

“Eugene,” she gasps.

Rapunzel sits up without warning, the air cold against the skin he’d been carefully exposing, and the rowboat careens violently beneath them.

“Wha- _shit_.” He catches her just as the boat tips her dangerously close to the water, and she tumbles back into his arms. “Are you alright?”

She can feel it now, the subtle movement in her abdomen that can only be attributed to the baby. It comes and goes in little bursts, and she tries to imagine what they’re doing, whether acrobatics or dancing—she’s no expert, but she knows a thing or two she could teach the baby in a few years if that’s what they like.

Carefully leaning back again and smoothing out her skirts, she says, “They’re moving.”

“The baby?” She nods as Eugene places his hands against the slight bump. “Hey there, little one. Did we wake you up?”

“Your dad _is_ pretty unruly,” she jokes.

He’s mirroring her grin when she looks up, which makes his complaints fall flat, not that either of them mind. 

This past month had been better, her early symptoms turning into boundless energy and joy, and it seems to culminate into this moment. They’re going to have a _baby_ after all, and for the first time, she truly believes it.

* * *

_\+ twenty-five weeks_

A few weeks later, the nausea returns, followed by overwhelming exhaustion. After that it’s the headaches, which begin just as a nuisance before gradually worsening to the point of Doctor Rosia ordering her to rest.

“I’m fine,” she tries to insist, but the weariness in her voice gives her away.

Eugene has been increasingly fretting over her, and if she wasn’t so tired, she’d protest. But as it happens, when he wraps an arm around her shoulders, she drops gratefully into his arms.

“Mhm,” Doctor Rosia mutters. “And how much food have you been keeping down?”

She stays silent at that, not particularly wanting to lie to the royal physician, but knowing the truth will keep her bedridden for months. Her parents have been wonderful about sharing her duties, of course, but Rapunzel loathes the idea of not being able to work or even wander outside without the watchful eyes of her husband.

“And how much sleep?” Doctor Rosia continues with a frown.

“Oh, plenty,” Rapunzel answers, pleased to at least check one box. “Maybe even twelve hours a day!”

The physician’s frown deepens, which seems a little unfair. At her side, Eugene kneads reassuring circles against her hip, and she relaxes further into him. No matter what happens, at least she has his support.

Like how he keeps a tight grip on her hand when Doctor Rosia asks her to lie down, pushing and squeezing her abdomen as she continues her examination. Rapunzel glances from the physician to her stomach and back, trying to gauge the situation, but neither seem to say much of anything.

“Well, Your Majesty, I’ve got one explanation,” she declares at last, smiling for the first time that Rapunzel has seen. “You’re carrying twins.”

Her words fall flat, Rapunzel not quite comprehending while her brain tries to catch up. Eugene’s hand falls slack within hers.

Doctor Rosia continues, already turning away to the myriad of instruments and medicines behind her. “Can’t be certain until they pop out screaming, but it feels like one too many heads in there to me. And it would explain the complexity of your symptoms.”

“Twins,” Eugene says, his mind clearly not working any faster than hers.

“Just a hypothesis. Give me one moment, I’ve got a mulled wine that’s excellent for multiples.”

As she steps into her back room, Eugene turns to Rapunzel with wide eyes. She wonders if he’s thinking the same things as her—that she barely expected to have one baby, let alone two, and that’s one more thing that needs to be added to the nursery, and—

“She said twins, right?” Eugene runs a nervous hand through his hair. “Because, and I’d hate to pile this on top of everything else, but I might need to get my hearing checked out.”

Though it’s also wonderful, the possibility of twins. She brings her hands to her stomach, trying to imagine two babies swimming around together, and feels a little better knowing neither one is alone. Rapunzel knows better than anyone how devastating that can be.

In one motion, she’s sitting up and wrapping her arms around Eugene. It’s getting harder to hug him with what might be two babies in the way, but she manages as well as she can, ignoring the pounding in her head. 

“Twins,” she confirms.

Eugene laughs, and she feels the same foolish elation bubbling from her chest.

* * *

_\+ thirty weeks_

“You’re sure this is safe?” Her husband holds the small vial up to the sky, squinting at the translucent liquid.

Varian snatches it back just as quickly. “Well, maybe,” he says. “I need to run a few more tests, but it should be perfected by the birth.”

When Eugene narrows his eyes at the alchemist, Rapunzel can’t help but laugh. It feels good to be outside, the sun on her skin, grass tickling the bare skin of her legs as she relaxes in the garden. She doesn’t even mind the bickering of the men beside her.

It was Varian who arranged the picnic, excited to show off his latest creations. After she lost the first baby so suddenly, he was one of the first to know, and took to action in the only way he knew how. For the past few years, he’s been working alongside Doctor Rosia, trying to find any solutions he could.

“I saved the best for last, though.” He pauses with his hands behind his back, and Rapunzel glances to him, waiting for his theatrical reveal. “Tada!”

“Ooh, can I see?”

He hands her the strange device, beaming proudly as she turns it over in her hands. It appears to be a strange wire, with a cone on one end and two prongs on the other. She turns the metal cone over in her hands, finding the wider side is slightly caved in but otherwise ordinary.

“Here,” Varian offers, taking the two prongs and placing them in her ears. As he does so, the sound of her fingers against the cone amplifies, and she jerks away in shock before curiously tapping at it again. “I call it the Magniheart.”

“What’s it do?”

In answer, he takes the other end and presses the cone to his chest. The familiar sound of a heartbeat fills her ears, and she gasps.

“Varian, that’s amazing!”

“That’s not all, either. At least, I think this should work.”

He takes the cone and presses it gently over her stomach, keeping a watchful eye on Rapunzel’s expression. She isn’t sure what she’s hearing at first, trying to decipher a litany of strange sounds. Taking the cone for herself, she experiments moving it to different locations, but regrettably hands it back to Varian.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be hearing.”

Varian tries listening as well, brows furrowing. “Hm, I could try it with a bigger sample. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone else pregnant in Corona?”

“Sure, there’s Marnie Weber in the kitchen,” she lists, “Victoria Morales down by the west docks, Yuri Bernard from…”

Rapunzel trails off, overwhelmed by a sudden pressure behind her eyes and the sense that something is _wrong_. She reaches for Eugene’s hand almost on instinct, and recalls gripping it tightly before the world starts tilting off its access.

Somewhere above her, she hears shouting. It sounds distant and peculiar, as if she were underwater, though she can’t remember going for a swim. She can’t remember anything, actually, which would be concerning if she weren’t so tired. Maybe she can figure it out tomorrow, after a long rest. 

“ _Rapunzel_!” Oh, that’s her name. “Sunshine, please, open your eyes.”

She tries, but the world seems a bit too blurry and bright, so she gives that up. Everything was so peaceful before, but the ringing in her ears fades to more shouting, and there’s too many sounds to make sense of. Then she’s floating, and it’s warm, and that’s Eugene, isn’t it? He’s carrying her, but she doesn’t know where they’re going.

“I’ve got you,” he says. “You’re alright. I’m here.”

There’s other voices around her, though she only picks up bits and pieces. Words like “seizure,” and “eclampsia,” and “bedrest,” but she can’t figure out what any of them mean.

“Eugene?” she asks.

“Hi, sunshine, I’m right here.”

“It’s too soon.” That’s Doctor Rosia. “We’ll just have to wait and hope her condition doesn’t worsen.”

Rapunzel’s set down on something soft, possibly a bed. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing, sweetheart.” She feels something warm against her forehead—a kiss, that she’s certain of. “Relax, I’ll take care of you.”

Well, that sounds alright to her. It is comfortable here, and she can tell by the dip of the mattress that her husband is at her side, smoothing back her hair. She’s asleep before anyone can tell her otherwise.

* * *

_\+ thirty-two weeks_

They’re eating breakfast in bed when it happens. Rapunzel feels a strange rush between her legs, and though she’s gotten used to all sorts of strange sensations over the past few months, this one’s accompanied by a strong sense of dread.

Eugene seems to detect her distress immediately, moving both of their plates aside. He’s looking at her expectantly, but she’s scared to voice her fears, scared to look below the quilt.

“Can you get Doctor Rosia?” she asks quietly.

Irrationally, she doesn’t want him here when she inevitably finds blood coating the sheets, can already feel it sticking to her thighs. She doesn’t want to watch his face fall, or see tears spring up in his eyes. She just wants one, selfish moment to grieve on her own.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

She tries to put on a smile, despite knowing he can see through her better than anyone. “Please, Eugene? It’s not like I can go anywhere.”

Nodding, he slowly slides out of their bed and leaves with a kiss to her temple. The second he’s out the door, she rips away the quilt and nearly chokes at the sight of the blood. It’s more than she expected, and she cradles her stomach, desperate to feel anything to signify the fragile life within her.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, frozen in fear, before Eugene and the physician burst into the room.

“Rapunzel?” He’s at her side in an instant, hands hovering around her, and she grips tightly to his shirt.

Meanwhile, Doctor Rosia wastes no time in stripping the bed and pulling off her undergarments to take a closer look. “Your Majesty, are you in any pain?”

“I think so,” she says. It’s hard to think. Ever since the seizure, Rapunzel’s spent most of her days in pain. “Yes.”

She zones in and out of the exam, but catches the end, when the physician orders an emergency caesarean delivery. Things move faster after that. Doctor Rosia calls for nurses and equipment, and guards start rushing in and out. Her parents are called, and she can hear Eugene giving instructions to someone, but the only thing she can focus on are her babies. Rapunzel doesn’t think she can stand losing them, not after all this time, not again.

“Sunshine,” her husband whispers, back at her side. His hands are in her hair, brushing against her cheeks, touching the crest of her abdomen. “Stay with me, please.”

He’s crying, and she knows she isn’t faring any better. 

It seems like centuries ago, when she first sat in the castle’s dining room, her parents mere strangers at the other end of the table. Her mom told a similar story of her decline, before drinking an elixir of the sundrop as a last ditch effort. She knows, perhaps too well, that no such saving grace will come for her now.

“I’m scared,” she tells Eugene, only because she can’t promise him anything else.

His lips twitch, and she watches the last of his resolve fall. “Me too.”

He stays at her side while her family and friends rotate through, and she tries to keep her eyes open through it all. Before long, the pounding of her heart echoes too loudly in her ears, and she isn’t strong enough to maintain her grip on Eugene’s hand.

The room is cleared at Doctor Rosia’s orders when she can no longer keep her head up, until it’s just the physician, a few nurses, and her husband at her side. “Your Majesties,” the physician warns.

Eugene leans forward, ghosting his lips over hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

After that, the only thing she feels is pain. It lasts only a moment before she watches her room fade to darkness, her husband’s weary smile the final sight she registers. Up to this point, Doctor Rosia had been able to describe the procedure in excruciating detail, but everything now will be left to chance.

She can imagine how it might look—Eugene, confident as he acts, will look anywhere but her abdomen as Doctor Rosia makes the incision. The babies will be extracted one by one, both fat and happy, crying as they take their first breaths.

They’ll grow up loved more than anything, and take every second of it for granted, that she’ll make sure of. She’ll teach them to treat everyone with kindness, and fight for what they believe in, and follow each and every one of their dreams. She’ll be grey and old when she leaves them, her husband at her side, their children’s children running rampant throughout the kingdom. And at the end of it all, Rapunzel will be content, and she’ll finally get to rest.

“Hey, sunshine,” her husband greets, when she wakes up aching and sore.

He’s in the bed beside her, grinning widely, a stark contrast to her last memory of him. And there, cradled in each of his arms, are two babies wrapped in cloth.

“Hi.” Her voice cracks, and she can barely lift her head to get a better look. “Are those…?”

“The cutest baby girls in the entire world? Yeah, I think so.”

There are tears in her eyes before she can process his words, and she’s frustrated by the way they blur her vision. It isn’t enough to deter her delight, though, especially not when Eugene slides closer and helps position their daughters in her arms. She was wrong, she thinks. This is better than anything she could have dreamt of before.

**Author's Note:**

> in my original version of this, rapunzel lost one of the twins during the birth. you can thank inès (kingrey) for the last minute change.
> 
> i would also like to hereby thank emily (eugeneismyqueen) for supplying a line of dialogue when i was stuck it saved my life. 
> 
> also if there’s any other medical science nerds out there i’ve dated most of the prenatal care to the 1700s with some modern sprinklings of anatomy and reproduction knowledge. i think it fits the not-quite-historical world of tangled. and if anyone's terrified of pregnancy now, rapunzel's condition would likely never progress this terribly with modern technology.
> 
> (p.s. yes, rapunzel and eugene did continue their escapades in the rowboat, thank you for asking)


End file.
